There are so many weird and wonderful phrases used by commentators, pundits and fans in football, but ‘top bins’ might just take the biscuit.
It is something that most people will feel as though they intrinsically understand, even if they don’t know exactly what it means or precisely why they’re saying it.
It is a phrase that is brought out on an occasion when a footballer has hit the ball into the very top corner of the net, getting into a place where even the best goalkeeper might struggle to reach.
The question is, why do we say it?
Top Corner
Precisely where the phrase ‘top bins’ comes from in football is difficult to ascertain, but it is likely to be from when players practice shots. In a lot of places, a bucket or bin will be put in each of the top corners of the goal, as well as others in the bottom corners and two in the middle.
The curious thing is why it is that ‘top’ bins has become the go-to phrase of so many people, as opposed to praising a player for scoring ‘bottom bins’ or ‘middle bins’. It is probably because the idea of ‘top bins’ rolls off the tongue easier and sounds more pleasing.
Sensational Steph Catley top bins 🎯
#UWCL || #ArsenalWFC
— UEFA Women’s Champions League Bot (@uwclbot.bsky.social) Jan 8, 2026 at 14:31
It is a mostly British phrase, as you might imagine. That doesn’t mean that other nationalities don’t have their own phrases that refer to the same area of the goal. In Brazil, for example, they would say that it is ‘where the owl sleeps’. In Spain, meanwhile, they talk of a goal being scored ‘where the spiders nest’. Residents of the Czech Republic might say that the ball had gone to ‘the gallows’. Even the English don’t exclusively use ‘top bins’, with some people being happy to say that the ball was put on the ‘postage stamp’.
Regardless of the phrase used, it is a reference to a specific place that is usually small and difficult to reach. Should you hear someone say that a player has put the ball in ‘top bins’, that is a suggestion that the goal will be worth watching, with the ball having gone somewhere that even the very best goalkeeper would not be able to stop the ball from finding its target. We aren’t talking wheelie bins here either, but rather the small type of bin that you might find in the corner of a home office. Somewhere difficult to reach in a high corner? That’s top bins.